It's definitely time to encourage tech entrepreneurs in region

My daughter is en route to Wilmington, N.C., to start a new life. A registered nurse, she took a job at half of what she earned at the Loma Linda VA Hospital. I couldn’t get my mind around it until she told me what her schedule was like here.

She got up at 4 a.m., to get on the road by 5. After a 12 ½-hour shift, she got home about 8, which was actually past her bedtime. And so to spend any time with her husband, or to hang out with friends or family, or get some time at the gym came at the expense of being rested the next day.

In Wilmington, the hospital is 20 minutes away, with no traffic. Her husband is already there. Fresh out of the Marines, he had a tough time finding work locally.

Her story is shared by 66 percent of the population in the region. It's ironic that to live in such a family-friendly community comes at the expense of spending time with our families. Because certainly after a grueling day that includes a brutal commute, our families get what’s left of us, not the best of us. We commute to San Diego, Riverside, Orange County, even L.A. Our median income is $100K, and as of yet there aren’t all that many jobs that pay that well locally, yet.

This was addressed in Murrieta Mayor Rick Gibbs’ State of the City speech last month.

As I pointed out last week, the California business climate is such that neither Intel, Microsoft, nor anybody else likely will be building a huge facility here. And one of our largest employers, Abbott, has been laying off workers recently and is likely to get hit hard by Obamacare.

Mr. Gibbs’ answer is to think long-term, and to think regionally, and to build a “Technology Economy,” targeting businesses in the bio-science/pharmaceuticals, medical devices and information technology sectors. This also includes the possibility of getting a brick and mortar university, heavy into engineering, science, mathematics and technology, so that entrepreneurs may have the same connection that companies such as Qualcomm have enjoyed with UCSD in the cellphone industry.

What he described is to create an “entrepreneurial ecosystem” and have county and city governments assist in developing a community of tech entrepreneurs, not only in the Murrieta Innovation Center, but in the region stretching from Corona to UCR in Riverside, and down both Interstates 15 and 215 to Temecula.

Tech jobs could gradually expand on their own up from San Diego, and make it up this way over a period of 30 years, but Gibbs believes with both city and county government supporting entrepreneurial business development, we could have start-ups and tech businesses flourishing within a decade. His plan also includes outreach to organizations such as InSoCal Connect, San Diego Innovation Hub and possible sources of funding.